Compton, Guildford

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

Village and civil parish in Surrey, England

title: "Compton, Guildford" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["villages-in-surrey", "borough-of-guildford", "civil-parishes-in-surrey"] description: "Village and civil parish in Surrey, England" topic_path: "general/villages-in-surrey" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compton,_Guildford" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Village and civil parish in Surrey, England ::

::data[format=table title="infobox UK place"]

Field	Value
static_image_name	Compton, Surrey. Church of St. Nicholas DSC 2452.jpg
static_image_caption	Church of St. Nicholas, Compton.
country	England
type	Village and civil parish
official_name	Compton
coordinates
population	1154
population_ref	(Civil Parish 2011)
area_total_km2	8.43
civil_parish	Compton
shire_district	Guildford
shire_county	Surrey
region	South East England
constituency_westminster	Godalming and Ash
post_town	Guildford
postcode_district	GU3
postcode_area	GU
dial_code	01483
os_grid_reference	SU9546
::

Compton is a village and civil parish in the Guildford district of Surrey, England. It is about 3 miles WSW of the centre of Guildford. It has a medieval church and a close connection with fine art and pottery: it was the later life home of artist George Frederic Watts. The parish has considerable woodland and agricultural land, and the undeveloped portions are in the Metropolitan Green Belt. The village is traversed by the North Downs Way and has a large western conservation area. Central to the village are the Watts Gallery and the cemetery chapel commissioned for George Watts by his wife, two inns and the parish church.

Geography

The village is just off the Compton junction of the A3 road, and the North Downs Way passes to the north of the village. Compton contains the Watts Mortuary Chapel, built to the memory of Symbolist painter George Frederic Watts, a resident of the village. Development can be classed as ribbon development around the through road. The 2001 census gives a population of 972 living in 384 households. The maximum elevation of the parish is on the Hog's Back at 152 m, the minimum at a small brook flowing east of the village centre, at its lowest on outflow at 45 m above sea level.

The western part of the village forms a conservation area (as well as a very small eastern part between The Avenue and Compton Wood).

History

Relics from the structure of the tower of the village's church, St Nicholas', suggest that the area was settled during the period of Roman occupation of Britain. Compton appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as Conton(e). It was held by Walter, son of Othere. Its domesday assets were: 11 hides; 1 church, 9 ploughs, 7 acre of meadow. It rendered £9.

St Nicholas' Church contains one of the oldest surviving carved Norman screens. The basic structure, including the tower, is Anglo-Saxon, but it has been much altered over the centuries. For example, the influence of the Normans can be seen in the arches, the timber roofing (thought to date back to 1165) and the unique carved wooden screen in the chancel. Other features were added in the generations that followed, such as the spire (14th century), the pulpit and the clock (17th century). A unique feature is the only surviving two-storey sanctuary in England. The church is grade I-listed.

On the outskirts of Compton is the 16th century stately home Loseley Park. The Great Hall contains panelling taken from Henry VIII's palace at Nonsuch Park.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Withies_Inn_1.jpg" caption="The Withies Inn"] ::

The Withies Inn is one of the oldest buildings in the village. Just off the main road, it was built in the 16th century.

The manor of Field Place was bought in 1709 by the London publisher Samuel Manship (1665-1720), passing to his widow Anne and then their son John. His son John only had one child Anne, who eloped, and the manor was sold.

The ashes of Aldous Huxley were brought from the US on 27 October 1971 and interred in his parents' grave at Watts Cemetery.

George Frederic Watts

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Watts_Gallery_(Restored).JPG" caption="fewer-links= yes}}"] ::

One of Compton's most notable residents was the artist who was the painter and sculptor, George Frederic Watts, who lived his later life at a house in the village he called "Limnerslease", close to which is the early 20th century Watts Gallery, dedicated to his work. The gallery is open to visitors. After his death, Watts Mortuary Chapel and cloister designed by his wife, Mary Seton Watts, were built on a hill overlooking the village. Among his subjects were Hope (part of his "House of Life" cycle), Orpheus and Eurydice and a portrait of fellow artist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Potteries

The Compton Potters' Arts Guild was formed in 1899 by Mary Fraser-Tytler (her name before marriage to G. F. Watts) and initially used a source of local clay discovered during the building of Limnerslease. It continued until 1954.

Artist and historian Mary Wondrausch lived and worked in the parish at the site of a former brickworks. Made of local clay from the foundations of her pottery, sculptor Jon Edgar's Compton Triptych was unveiled in November 2011. The three terracotta heads celebrate the parish of Compton and the diverse figures who have contributed to this community.

Literature

Arthur Conan Doyle's novels Sir Nigel and The White Company refer to certain characters as being buried in Compton Church.

Compton is the home village of characters described in Freeman Wills Crofts' 1933 murder mystery The Hog's Back Mystery.

Demography and housing

The proportion of households in Compton who owned their home outright was 8% above the regional average. The proportion who owned their home with a loan was 3.6% lower than the regional average; social housing formed 13.7% of homes, providing overall a greater proportion of social rented housing and lower proportion of privately rented housing relative to the average of Surrey, the district and of the United Kingdom.

::data[format=table title="2011 Census Key Statistics"]

Output area	Population	Households	% Owned outright	% Owned with a loan	% Socially rented	hectares
Compton (CP)	1,154	386	40.4	31.9	13.7	843
::

::data[format=table title="2011 Census Homes"] | Output area | Detached | Semi-detached | Terraced | Flats and apartments | Caravans/temporary/ mobile homes||Shared between households | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | (Civil Parish) | 173 | 113 | 51 | 49 | 0 | ::

The average level of accommodation in the region composed of detached houses was 28%, the average that was apartments was 22.6%.

Politics

Compton is in Guildford (UK Parliament constituency), which since its inception has fluctuated between political parties. Local government is administered by Guildford Borough Council and Surrey County Council.

At Surrey County Council, one of the 81 representatives represents the area within the Shalford division.

At Guildford Borough Council small wards of the borough are each represented by two councillors. ::data[format=table title="Guildford Borough Councillors
"]

Election	Member
Liberal Democrats (UK)}}"
Liberal Democrats (UK)}}"
::

::data[format=table title="Surrey County Councillor"]

Election	Member
Conservative Party}}"
::

References

Sources

Forster, David. (2001). AA 50 Walks in Surrey.

References

[http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk Key Statistics: Tenure; Quick Statistics: Population Density] {{Webarchive. link. (11 February 2003 [[United Kingdom Census 2011]] ''[[Office for National Statistics]]'' Retrieved 21 November 2013)
[http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadTableView.do?a=7&b=800062&c=Compton&d=16&e=15&g=490475&i=1001x1003x1004&m=0&r=1&s=1336577179420&enc=1&dsFamilyId=779 Census data]
link. (11 October 2011 [[Guildford (borough)). Guildford Borough Council]] Retrieved 20 November 2013
[http://www.gwp.enta.net/surrnames.htm Surrey Domesday Book] {{webarchive. link. (23 December 2004)
(2000). "England's Thousand Best Churches". Penguin Books.
{{NHLE
{{NHLE
'Parishes: Compton', in A History of the County of Surrey: Volume 3, ed. H E Malden (London, 1911), pp. 16-24 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/surrey/vol3/pp16-24 , retrieved 21 October 2015
King Dunaway, David. (23 September 2004). "Huxley, Aldous Leonard".
{{NHLE
Coffey Bryant, Barbara. (24 May 2007). "Watts, George Frederic".
Brickfields : My Life at Brickfields As a Potter, Painter, Gardener, Writer and Cook (2004) Wondrausch, Mary {{ISBN. 0-9548237-0-2
"THE HUMAN CLAY - University of Surrey - Guildford".
Sir Nigel, by Arthur Conan Doyle. Chapter xxvii.How the Third Messenger Came to Cosford
Crofts, Freeman Willis. (1933). "The Hog's Back Mystery". Hodder and Stoughton.
(6 August 2020). "A Good Read: The Hog's Back Mystery". Surrey Hills Society.
[http://mycouncil.surreycc.gov.uk/mgWardMap.aspx Electoral Divisions] {{webarchive. link. (2 December 2013 Surrey County Council. Retrieved 6 November 2013)
Guildford Borough Council]]. Retrieved 24 June 2025
[http://mycouncil.surreycc.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=1070 Your Councillor] [[Surrey County Council]]. Retrieved 6 November 2013

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::